SEBASTAPOL

 

Martin Ruby/ Sebastapol

 

Directed, Shot & Animated by Marco North

 

From Vents Magazine

"Like the visage of death himself, extending his arm and firmly guiding you through a barren stretch of road, songwriter Marco North’s sun-beaten guitar probes a venerated style of folk, cloaked in equal parts hope and despair, and as ominous as death bells. Gifted with a gutter-soaked croon, recalling the moonlight gravel-grinding of Nick Cave and the macabre outré of Tom Waits, Martin uses his hefty growl as the bedrock of his songs, letting the beauty and fragility of his acoustic-based arrangements lift the listener’s head from the streets to the stars as he wrestles with mortality, penance, grace, and forgiveness. It comes as no surprise when learning that North has lived in Moscow, Russia for the past fourteen years, clearly having allowed the brutal climate color his ostensibly jail-sprung voice. Despite the chill Moscow is known for, the ruthlessness of North’s music stems from his western-soaked imagery, all “blinding rain,” “jailbirds,” and searching for home, recording under the moniker, Martin Ruby. 

North’s unique songwriting is steeped in not only the melancholy grace of Nick Drake and Mark Linkous, but also the foggy noir of Johnny Cash’s American albums, and the somber meditativeness of Nick Cave’s most recent recorded output. However, these reference points would be nothing were it not for his filmmaker instincts, which not only manifest in references to the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century (“Fellini Was Dying”), but also sonic tapestries that drape behind songs like the aforementioned “Fellini” and “Long Tall Man.” Whether the psychoacoustics thrust you into the stir of city traffic or some rain-soaked alley at 1 a.m., they all serve to construct a pseudo-narrative replete with the listener’s own emotional turmoil. North describes himself as a devout minimalist, explaining his desire to constantly pare down songs so “there is room for the listener” to project their own experiences and develop their own relationships to the characters and settings therein. Nowhere is this philosophy felt more deeply than on highlight “Marfa,” in which North underscores the failures and longings of a stranger, desperately seeking the love of the titular Marfa. Though the narrative is specific to his own life, North’s voice and lyrics (“Marfa you ain’t guilty/Tell you the truth about me”) carry a comforting universality. Admittedly, the curio world-building of “Marfa” served as a launching pad for the rest of Heaven Get Behind Me, as North himself claims “There was an album in that world.”